Yoga Vasistha (Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana)

NATURE OF BONDAGE. 21. Now hear me relate to you, O moon-faced Ráma! about the nature of this bondage, whereby you will be able to know the mode and manner of our liberation from it (as the diagnosis of a disease being known, it is not difficult to heal it). 22. The intimate relation of the spectator with the spectacle is called his bondage to the same, because the looker’s mind is fast bound to the object of his sight. It is the absence of the visible objects, therefore, from the mirror of the mind, which is the only means of his liberation. (So also is the removal of the objects of the other senses from the mind). 23. The knowledge of the world, ego and tu (as separate existences) is said to be an erroneous view of the soul (which is one and the same in all); and there can be no liberation of one, as long as he labours under this blunder of bheda-jnána or knowledge of individualities. (This is called savikalpa-jnána or cognition of biplicity, which cannot lead to Kaivalya mukti or the felicity derived from a knowledge of universal unity).

24. To say that the soul is neither this nor that (nedam-nedam) is but false logomachy, which cannot come to an end. The discrimination of alternatives serves only to increase the ardour for the visibles. (i.e. The ardour of induction spreads the infection of materialism. The idle neti-neti and tanna-tanna of Vedanta Philosophy is mere amphilogy and prevarication of both, as idem et non idem). 25. It is not to be obtained by sophists by the chopping of logic or by pilgrimage or ceremonial acts, any more than by a belief in the reality of the phenomenal world. (All these are observances of the esoteric faith and blind persuasion, but do not appertain to the science of esoteric spiritualism. Gloss). 26. It is hard to avoid the sight of the phenomenal world, and to repress one’s ardour for the same. But it is certain that, the visibles can not lead us to the Reality, nor the Real mislead us to unreality (i.e. the spiritual and physical knowledge are mutually repugnant to each other).

27. Wherever the invisible, inconceivable and intelligent spirit is existent, there the beholder views the visible beauty of God shining even in the midst of atoms. (i.e. Every particle of matter manifests the beauty of its maker; unless there be a dull material object to intercept the sight of the intelligent soul). 28. The phenomenal world has its rise from Him, yet those ignorant people that depart from Him to the adoration of others, resemble fools, that forsake rice to feed upon gruel. (i.e. They take the shadow for the substance). 29. Although this visible world is apparent to sight, yet O Ráma! it is but a shadow of that Being, who resides alike in the smallest atom as in the mirror of the mind, that receives the image of the largest as well as minutest things. (Compare. As full and perfect in a hair as heart. Pope.) 30. The spirit is reflected in every thing like a figure in the mirror, and it shines equally in rocks and seas, in the land and water, as it does in the mirror of the mind. (compare: Wherever I cast my eyes, thy beauty shines).

31. The visible world is the scene of incessant woes, births, decay and death, and the states of waking, dreaming and sound sleep, are presenting by turns the gross, subtile and evanescent forms of things for our delusion. 32. Here I sit in my meditative mood (anirúdha), having wiped off the impressions of the visibles from my mind; but my meditation is disturbed by the recurrence of my remembrance of the visibles: and this is the cause of the endless transmigrations of the soul. (i.e. The reminiscence of the past is the cause of our everlasting bondage in life). 33. It is hard to have a fixed (nirúdha) and unalterable (nirvikalpa) meditation (samádhi), when the sight of the visible world is present before our bodily and mental vision. Even the fourth stage of insensible samádhi called the turíya, in the state of sound sleep (susupti), is soon succeeded by one’s self-consciousness and external intelligence. 34. On rising from this state of deep meditation, one finds himself as roused from his sound sleep, in order to view the world full of all its woes and imperfections opening wide before him. (Compare, “I wake to a sea of troubles, how happy they who wake no more”. Young).

35. What then, O Ráma! is the good of this transient bliss which one attains by his temporary abstraction (Dhyána), when he has to fall again to his sense of the sufferings to which the world is subject as a vale of tears. (Compare, “When the cock crew I wept &c.” Young’s Night Thoughts). 36. But if one can attain to a state of unalterable abstraction of his thoughts from all worldly objects, as he has in his state of sound sleep (susupti), he is then said to have reached the highest pitch of his holiness on earth. (For it is the entire oblivion of the world that is necessary for our spiritual perfection, as it is said, “forget the present for the future”). 37. No body has ever earned aught of reality in the scene of unreal vanities; for whenever his thoughts come in contact with any outward thing, he finds it inseparable from the blemishes of existence. (“Vanity of vanities, the world is vanity”. Ecclesiastes.) 38. Should any body (in the practice of the fixedness of his attention), fix his sight for a while on a stone, by forcibly withdrawing it from visible objects, he is sure to be carried away afterwards by the visibles pressing upon his sight.

39. It is well known to all that an unflinching meditation, having even the firmness of a rock, can have no durability, in the practice of the Yogi owing to his worldly propensities. 40. Even the nirúdha or steadfast meditation which has attained the fixedness of a rock, cannot advance one step towards the attainment of that tranquillity which has no bounds to it. (i.e. The everlasting bliss of liberation or moksha). 41. Thus the sight of phenomena being altogether irrepressible, it is a foolish supposition of its being suppressed by practices of Jap-tap or prayers and austerities and the like acts of devotion. 42. The idea of the phenomena (drisyadhi), is as inherent in the mind of the spectator of the visible world, as the seeds of the lotus flower are contained in the inner cells of the pericarp. 43. The ideal of the phenomenal world (drisyadhi), lies as hidden in the minds of the spectators of the outer world, as are the in-born flavour and moisture of fruits, the oil of sesamum seeds; and the innate sweet scent of flowers. 44. As the fragrance of camphor and other odoriferous substances inheres in their nature, so the reflexion of the visible world resides in the bosom of the intellect.

45. As your dreams and desires rise and subside of themselves under the province of your intellect, so the notions of things always recur to your mind from the original ideas of them impressed in the seat of the visibles (the mind). 46. The mental apparition of the visible world, deludes its beholder in the same manner, as the visual appearance of a spectre or hobgoblin, misleads a child (to its destruction). 47. The notion of the visible world gradually expands itself, as the germ of the seed shoots forth in time, and spreads itself afterwards in the form of a plant. 48. As the minute germs and animalcules, which are contained within the bosoms of fruits and embryos of animals, expand themselves to wonderfully beauteous forms afterwards, so the seed of this world (originally) lying hid in the Divine Mind, unfolds itself in wonderful forms of the visible phenomena in nature.

NARRATIVE OF THE AIR-BORN AND AERIFORM BRÁHMAN. Vasishtha resumed:—Hear me Ráma; now relate to you the narrative of one Ákásaja or air-born Bráhman, which will be a jewel to your ears, and enable you the better to understand the drift of the book of Genesis. 2. There lived a Bráhman Ákásaja by name, who sat always reclined in his meditation, and was ever inclined to the doing of good to all creatures. 3. Finding him long-lived, Death thought within himself saying:—It is I alone that am imperishable, and devour all things one by one. 4. How is it that I cannot cram myself with this air-born, wherein I find my teeth as blunt in him, as the edge of a sword is put to the bluff by the solid rock. 5. So saying, he proceeded to the abode of the Bráhman, intent upon making an end of him; for who is of so dull a nature as is not alert in his practice. 6. But as he was about to enter the house, he was opposed by a gorgeous flame of fire, like the conflagration of final destruction on the last day of the dissolution of the world.

7. He pierced the ambient flame and entered the dwelling, where seeing the Bráhman before him, he stretched his hand to lay hold on him with all avidity. 8. He was unable even with his hundred hands (i.e. with all his might) to grasp the Bráhman, as it is impossible for the strongest to withstand the resolute man in his wonted course. 9. He then had recourse to Yama—his lord to clear his doubt, and to learn why he could not devour the air-born (being). 10. Yama replied saying:—Death, trust not too far thy own might, that makes thee mighty to destroy the living. It is the act of the dying person that is the chief cause of his death and naught otherwise. 11. Therefore do thou be diligent to find out the acts of the person thou intendest to kill; because it is by their assistance only that thou canst seize thy prey. 12. Hereupon Death betook himself gladly to wander about in all places under the horizon. He roved over the habitable parts, as also throughout the lacunal and fluvial districts. 13. He traversed the forests and jungles, marshy and rocky grounds and maritime coasts, and passed to foreign lands and islands, and pried through their wildernesses, cities and towns.

14. He searched through kingdoms and countries, villages and deserts; and surveyed the whole earth to find out some act of the Bráhman in any part of it. 15. At last Death with all his search and effort, came to find the acts of the air-born Bráhman, to be as nil as the offspring of a barren woman; and his mind as transfixed (in meditation) as if it were a rock. 16. He then returned from his reconnoitering to his all-knowing master Yama, and besought his advice, as servants do in matters of doubt and difficulty (how to proceed). 17. Death addressed him saying:—“Tell me my lord, where the acts of the Air-born Bráhman are to be found;” to which Yama after a long head-work, replied as follows.

STATE OF THE SOUL. 18. Know, O Death! that this air-born seer has no acts whatever; for as he is born of empty air so his doings are all null and void. (i.e. The bodiless spirit or mind is devoid of acts requiring physical means and appliances). 19. Whoso is born of air, is as pure as air itself, and has no combination of cause or acts like all embodied (beings). 20. He has no relation with acts of his prior existence. He is nil as the child of an unprolific woman, and as one unborn, uncreated and unbegotten. 21. Want of causes has made him a pure vacuous being, and the privation of prior acts has made him as nil as an etherial arbor. 22. His mind is not ruffled as those of others, by reason of the privation of his former acts; nor is there any such act of his present state, whereby he may become a morsel to death. 23. Such is the soul seated in the sheath of vacuity, and remaining for ever as the simple form of its own causality (káranadeha), and not guided by any extraneous causation whatever.

24. It has no prior deed, nor does it do any thing at present; (i.e. neither led by predestination, nor actuated by present efforts); but continues as something in the shape of aeriform intelligence. 25. Our inference of the actions of breathing and motion by the agency of the soul, is a mere supposition; because the soul is devoid of every thought of or tendency to action. 26. It sits meditating on itself as inseparable from the Supreme Intelligence, just as the images (in painting and statuary), are inseparable from the mind of the painter and sculptor. 27. The self-born Bráhman is as intimately connected with the objects of his thought, as fluidity is associated with water and vacuity with the firmament. 28. His soul is as immanent in the supreme, as motion is inherent in the winds. It has neither the accumulated acts of past lives, nor those of its present state. (i.e. It is neither a passive nor active agent of prior or present acts; but is an indifferent witness of the acts of the body and mind). 29. It is produced without the co-operation of accompanying causes, and being free from prior motives, it is not subjected to the vicissitudes concomitant with human life.

30. It is found to be no other than its own cause; and having no other cause for itself, it is said to be self-produced. 31. Say, how can you lay hold on that being that has done no act before, nor is in the act of doing any thing at present? It is then only subjected to thee when it thinks itself mortal. (But he that knows his soul to be immortal is not subject to death). 32. Whoso believes his soul to be of this earth, and thinks himself to be an earthly being, he may be easily overtaken by thee (whose power extends over earth-born mortals only). 33. This Bráhman is a formless being, by reason of his disowning the material body. Hence it is as hard for thee to enthral him, as to entwine the air with a rope. 34. Death rejoined saying:—Tell me my lord! how may the unborn Aja or the self-born swayambhu, be produced out of vacuum, and how can an earthly or other elemental body be and not be (at the same time). 35. Yama replied:—This Bráhman is neither born nor is nil at any time; but remains for ever the same, as the light of intelligence of which there is no decay.

36. There remains nothing at the event of the great Doomsday, except the tranquil, imperishable and infinite Bráhman himself in his spiritual form. 37. This is the nature of the everlasting vacuum, too subtile in its essence, and devoid of all attributes; but viewing present before its mind, the stupendous cosmos in the form of a huge mountain in the beginning of recreation. (The mind is the noumenon—Brahma, and the phenomena of the world is the gigantic macrocosm known as Virájmúrti). 38. Being of the nature of intelligence it is imperishable; but those who view the spirit in the form of any phenomenal body, are liable to perish with it like all embodied beings. 39. Thus this Bráhman remained in the womb of vacuity in the beginning, in his state of unalterable, vacuous intelligence. 40. It is purely of the nature of the inane understanding, and of the form of a vast expanse of omniscience; having neither body nor organism; no acts nor agency, nor desire of any kind in itself. 41. That which is simply of the form of vacuum and pure light, is never beset by the snare of pristine desires, as a corporeal being.

42. It has nothing to know or see without itself (i.e. beyond its self-consciousness). The only conception that we have of it, is what resembles an extended intelligence (i.e. an all-diffusive omniscience). 43. Under these circumstances, how is it susceptible of any earthly or other external form? Therefore O Death! desist from thy attempt to lay hold on the same. 44. Hearing these words of Yama, Death thought upon the impracticability of laying hold on empty vacuity by any body, and sorrowfully returned to his own abode. 45. Ráma said: you said sir, that Brahmá is your great grand-sire; I think it is he that you mean to say as the unborn, self-born, universal soul and intelligence. 46. So is this Brahmá, Ráma! as I have spoken to you, and it was with regard to the same, that the aforesaid discussion was held of yore between Death and Yama (Pluto). 47. Again when Death had made an end of all living beings at the interval of a manwantará, he thought himself strong enough to make an attempt to bear down upon the lotus-born Brahmá also. 48. It was then that he was admonished by Yama, saying:—It is your habit that makes you go on your wonted course of killing.

49. But the super-etherial form of Brahmá too is beyond your reach: it being simply of the nature of the mind having connection with its thoughts only, and no concern with the actual forms of things. 50. It is of the form of the wonderfully vacuous intellect, having the faculty of cognition in it. Thus the intellect being but vacuum, has neither any cause for it, nor any effect produced by it. 51. As the aeriform volitive principle in men, manifests itself without being connected with material forms, so is the self-born (Brahmá) manifest to all in his own immaterial nature. 52. Like strings of pearl appearing to view in the clear firmament, and forms of cities seen in a dream, the self-born (Brahmá) is manifest of himself without relation to external objects. 53. As there is no beholder nor any thing beholden of the solitary Supreme spirit which is the intellect itself; so is the mind manifest of itself (without its looking at or being looked upon by any body). 54. It is the volitive mind which is called Brahmá and volition being a spiritual faculty, has no connection with any material substance.

55. As the mind of the painter is fraught with images of various things, so is the mind of Brahmá full of figures of all created beings. 56. The self-born Brahmá is manifest in his own mind as Brahmá is manifested in the vacuous sphere of his intellect. He is without beginning, middle and end, and appears to have a figure like that of a male being, while in reality he has no body, as the offspring of a barren woman.

CAUSES OF BONDAGE IN THE BODY. Ráma said:—It is even so as you have said, that the mind is a pure essence, and has no connection with the earth and other material substances; and that it is verily Brahmá itself. 2. Now tell me, O Bráhman! Why the remembrance of his former states (in the past and previous Kalpas), is not (to be reckoned as) the cause of his birth, as it is in the case of mine and yours and of all other beings. 3. Vasishtha replied:—Whoever had a former body, accompanied with the acts of his prior existence, retains of course its reminiscence, which is the cause of his being (reborn on earth). 4. But when Brahmá is known to have no prior acts, how is it possible for him to have his reminiscence of any thing? 5. Therefore he exists without any other cause except the causation of his own mind. It is by his own causality that the Divine spirit is self-born, and is himself his own spirit. 6. He is everlasting, and his body is born of itself from the self-existent Brahma. This unborn or self-born Brahmá has no material body whatever, except his subtile átiváhika or linga deha.

7. Ráma said:—The everlasting body is one thing (called the Súkshma saríra or subtile or immaterial body), and the mortal body is another (called the sthúladeha or the gross and material frame). Now tell me sir, whether all created beings have a subtile body also as that of Brahmá? 8. Vasishtha replied:—All created beings that are produced of a cause, have two bodies (the súkshma and the sthúla or the subtile and the gross). But the unborn being which is without a cause, has one body only (which is called the átiváhika or the everlasting spiritual body). 9. The increate Brahmá is the cause of all created beings, but the uncreated spirit having no cause for itself, has one body for it. 10. The prime lord of creatures has no material body; but manifests himself in the vacuous form of his spiritual body. 11. His body is composed of the mind alone, and has no connection with the earth or any other material substance. He is the first lord of creatures, that stretched the creation from his vacuous body (or spiritual essence).

12. All these are but forms of the images or ideas in his vacuous mind, and having no other patterns or originals in their nature. And that every thing is of the same nature with its cause, is a truth well known to all (from the identity of the effect and its material cause). 13. He is an inexistent being and of the manner of perfect intelligence. He is purely of the form of the mind, and has an intellectual and no material entity. 14. He is prime (cause) of all material productions in the physical world, and is born of himself with his prime mobile force in the form of the mind. 15. It was by the first impulse given by the prime moving power, that this expanse of creation came to be spread in the same ratio, as the currents of air and water (or the velocity of winds and tides), are in proportion to the impetus given to them. 16. This creation shining so bright to our sight, has caught its light from the luminous mind of the formless Brahmá, and appears as real to our conceptions (as they are ideal in the Divine mind).

17. Our vision in a dream is the best illustration of this (unreality of worldly things): as that of the enjoyment of connubial bliss in dreaming. It is then that an unreal object of desire, presents itself as an actual gain to our fond and false imagination. 18. The vacuous, immaterial and formless spirit, is now represented as the self-born and corporeal lord of creatures in the form of the first male. (Protogonus or the only begotten son of God). 19. He remains undiscerned in his state of pure intelligence; but becomes manifest to all by the evolution of his volition. He is indiscernible in his absolute state (of inaction); but becomes conspicuous to us in the display of his nature (in creation). 20. Brahmá is the divine power of volition (or the will of God). He is personified as the first male agent of creation, but devoid of a corporeal body. He is only of the spiritual form of the mind, and the sole cause of the existence of the triple world. 21. It is his volition that makes the self-born (Brahmá) to exert his energies, as human desires impel all mankind to action: and the vacuous mind manifests itself as a mountain of desires.

22. It then forgets its everlasting and incorporeal nature, and assumes to itself the solid material body, and shows itself in the shape of a delusive apparition (in his creation). 23. But Brahmá, who is of an unsullied understanding, is not involved in oblivion of himself, by the transformation of his unknowable nature to the known state of volition (or change of the nirguna to saguna). 24. Being unborn of material substance, he sees no apparition like others, who are exposed by their ignorance to the misleading errors of falsehood, appearing in the shape of a mirage before them. 25. As Brahmá is merely of the form of the mind, and not composed of any material substance, so the world being the product of the eternal mind, is of the same nature with its original archetype. 26. Again as the uncreated Brahmá is without any accompanying causality with himself, so his creation has no other cause beside himself (i.e. There is no secondary cause of the universe). 27. Hence there is no difference in the product from its producer; because it is certain, that the work must be as perfect as its author (so says the Sruti:—Púrnat púrnam &c.).

28. But there is nothing as a cause and effect to be found in this creation, because the three worlds are but the prototypes of the archetype of the divine mind. 29. The world is stretched out in the model of the Divine mind, and not formed by any other holy spirit. It is as immanent in the mind of God, as fluidity is inherent in water. 30. It is the mind which spreads out this extended unreality of the world like castles in the air, and builds Utopian cities (by its imagination only). 31. There is no such thing as materiality, which is as false a conception as that of a snake in a rope. Hence it is no way possible for Brahma and other beings to exist as individual bodies. 32. Even spiritual bodies are inexistent to enlightened understandings. As for the material body, it has no room in existence. (Matter or a corporeal substance or an unseen substratum is a non-entity. Berkeley). 33. Man (manu) who derives his name from his mind (mana) is a form of the volitive soul called Verinchi (Lat. vir—inchoare the inchoative spirit of Brahma); and has for his dominion the mental or intellectual world mano-rajyam (Lat. mentis regio vel regnum) where all things are situated in the form of realities.

34. The mind is the creative Brahma called Verinchitvas (Lat. Virinchoativus), by the exercise of its inherent sankalpa or the volition of incipience or creation—sisriksha; and displays itself in the form of the visible universe by development of its own essence. 35. This Virinchi or the creative power is of the form of the mind manas, as the mind itself is of the form of Virinchi also. It has no connection with any material substance, which is a mere creation of the imagination. (That is to say, matter is an imaginary substance or substratum of qualities only). 36. All visible things are contained in the bosom of the mind, as the lotus-bud and blossom reside in the seed of the lotus. Hence there is no difference between the mental and visible appearances of things, nor has any one ever doubted of it any where. 37. Whatever things you see in a dream, whatever desires you have at heart and all the ideals of your fancy, together with your ideas, notions and impressions of the visibles, know your mind to be the receptacle of them all.

38. But the visible objects relating to the option of the mind (i.e. which are desirable, to every one), are as baneful to their beholder, as an apparition is to a child (i.e. they are equally tempting and misleading to all). 39. The ideal of the phenomenal drisyadhi, developes itself as the germ contained in the seed and becomes in its proper time and place a large tree (comparable with the great arbor of the world known as sansáramahí ruha or Vriksha). 40. If there is no rest with what is real, there can be no peace with the phenomenals which are full of troubles, and give no solace to the mind. It is impossible that the feeling of the perception of visibles will be ever lost to their perceiver (observer), though its subsidence only is said to constitute liberation.

DESCRIPTION OF THE NIGHT-FALL. Válmíki related:— While Vasistha—the leading sage, was thus going on with his lecture without interruption, the whole assembly was intent upon listening to it with a fixed tone and tenor of their minds. 2. The string of bells (tied to the waists of warriors) ceased to jingle, every one was motionless, and even the parrots in the cages ceased to warble and flutter. 3. The ladies forgot their dalliance and were quietly attentive to the sermon: and all in the royal hall, were fixed in attention as they were paintings and statues. 4. There remained but an hour to the closing of the day, and the sun-beams became agreeable to all. The busy bustle of the world was dwindling away with the glimmering light of the setting sun. 5. The beds of full-blown lotuses exhaled their fragrance all around, and soft Zephyrs were playing about, as if to attend the audience. 6. The sun glided away from his diurnal course, and advanced to the top of his solitary setting mountain, as if he meant to reflect on all that he had heard. 7. The shades of night began to cover the landscape, and the frost to overspread the forest-lands; as if they were cooled by the cooling lectures on philosophy.

8. Now failed the concourse of the people in all directions, as if they had availed themselves of the instructions of the sage to abate the fervour of their exertions. 9. All objects on earth cast their lengthened shadows, as if they stretched their necks to hear the preaching of Vasishtha. 10. The chamberlain then advanced lowly to the monarch of the earth, and begged to inform, that the time for evening ablution and service, was about to expire. 11. Upon this the sage Vasishtha, curbed his sweet speech and said:—Let thus far, mighty king! be your hearing of this day, and I will resume my lecture, and speak of other things to-morrow. 12. Here the sage held his silence, when the king responded “Be it so as you will,” and rose from his seat. 13. He honoured for his own good, that godly sage and the other seers and Bráhmans, with due respects and offerings of flowers, water, worthy honorariums, fees, gifts and homage. 14. Then rose the whole assembly with the king and the assemblage of sages; and the gems and jewels that decked the persons of the princes and people, shed their lustres on the faces of all.

15. There was a commingled tinkling of the bracelets and armlets of the throng caused by the collision of their bodies (in their egress), and mixed flashing of the necklaces and brocades that decorated their persons. 16. The jewels attached to the tufts and crests of hair on the tops of their heads, emitted a jingling sound resembling the humming of bees amidst their flowery braids. 17. The face of the sky on all sides, that shone with a purple hue reflected by the golden ornaments on their persons, seemed as it was pleased with the wise sayings and sense of the sage. 18. The aerial visitants vanished in the air, and the earthly guests repaired to their respective habitations on earth where they all performed their daily (evening) services in their own residences. 19. In the meantime sable night made her appearance on earth, and like a bashful young lady, withdrew to the closet apart from the rest of mankind. 20. The lord of the day passed to other lands to shine upon them, for verily it is the avowed duty of every good person to give the benefit of equal light to all.

21. The shade of evening veiled all sides, and uplifted the canopy of the starry sphere on high, which like the vernal atmosphere, was emblazoned with the starlike flowers of kinsuka. 22. The birds of air took to their repose in the hollows of mango trees, or on the tops of Kádamba arbours, as honest people of fair dealing, find their rest in the purity of their minds, and contriteness of their inward hearts. 23. The skirts of the clouds tinged with red by the slanting beams of the setting sun, and with a shade of yellow hue upon them, decorated the western hills with vests of yellow garb while the sky crowned their heads with gemming wreaths of starry groups. 24. The Goddess of evening (Vespera), having departed after receiving her homage (by the vespers of mankind), was followed by her train of dark night shades, appearing as black-bodied fiends—Vetálas (night roving nisácharas of deserts). 25. A gentle and cooling breeze was blowing softened by the dew drops of night, and opening the petals of the Kumuda flowers (nylumbium), and bearing their fragrance all around.

26. A thick gloom covered the face of nature, and the stars were hid under the mists of night, and all the quarters of the skies, seemed with their overhanging loose and hairy mists, as the faces of widows shrouded by the dark dishevelled hair of mourning (for their departed lord the sun). 27. Now appeared the moist orb of the moon in her ambrosial form in the milky ocean of the sky, to moisten the mundane heat with her milk-white beams (sudhá-subhra-dídhiti). 28. On her rising, the thick mists of darkness fled from the eastern hemisphere, and became invisible in the air; as the darkness of ignorance is put to flight from the minds of monarchs, by their attendance to the sayings of wisdom. 29. Then the sages and seers, the rulers and priests of the people, took their rest in their respective beds, as the words of Vasishtha which were full of meaning, reposed in the recesses of their hearts. 30. As the thick darkness of night, resembling the dark complexion of death, receded from the arena of the skies, there followed close on its foot-steps the dewy dawn of the day with her slow moving pace.

31. The twinkling stars now disappeared from the sky, as the flowers on the trees were blown away by the breeze, and strewn on the ground as the fallen stars of heaven. 32. The sun became visible to the eyes, which his rays had roused from their sleep, as the new-rising faculty of reason becomes conspicuous in the minds of enlightened great souls. 33. Fragments of clouds shining with solar gleams, spread a yellow mantle over the eastern hills, which were still decorated with strings of stars, pendant on the crests of their lofty heads (like strings of pearls suspended to the crowns of kings). 34. All the terrestrial and celestial congress assembled again at the royal hall, in the order and manner (of their meeting) of the day before, after the performance of their morning services. (Originally prátastanáh matins or matutinal ceremonies). 35. The whole assemblage took their seats as on the previous day, and sat unmoved in their places, as a lotus-lake in its calmness after a storm.

NATURE OF THE MIND. 36. Then Ráma addressed the most eloquent of sages Vasishtha, with his mellifluent words regarding the subject under investigation (the nature of the mind). 37. He said:—Tell me plainly, O venerable sir! about the form of the mind, which developed itself in all things of the universe, as they were offshoots of it (or manifestations of the mind). 38. Vasishtha replied:—Ráma! there is no form whatever of the mind, that may be seen by any body. It has nothing substantial besides its name as that of the formless and irremovable vacuity: (with which it is compared in its all-comprehensiveness, all-diffusiveness and all-pervasiveness). 39. The mind as an ens or entity (sat), is not situated in the outer body (or any part of it), nor is it confined in the cavity of the inward heart or brain. But know it O Ráma, to be situated everywhere, as the all encompassing vacuum. (Being all-pervading and all-diffusive in its nature as vacuity itself). 40. This world is produced from it, and likens to the waters of the mirage. It manifests itself in the forms of its fleeting thoughts, which are as false as the appearance of secondary moons in the vapours.

41. The thinking principle is generally believed as something intermediate between the positive and negative, or real and unreal, you must know it as such and no other (i.e. neither material as the body, nor immaterial as the soul, but a faculty appertaining to the nature of both). 42. That which is the representative of all objects is called the mind: there is nothing besides to which the term mind is applicable. 43. Know volition to be the same as the mind, which is nothing different from the will, just as fluidity is the same with water, and as there is no difference between the air and its motion in the wind. (The inseparable property answering for its substance). 44. For wherever there is any will, there is that attribute of the mind also and nobody has ever taken the will and the mind for different things. 45. The representation of any object whether it is real or unreal is mind, and that is to be known as Brahma the great father of all. 46. The incorporeal soul in the body is called the mind, as having the sensuous knowledge or everlasting ideas of the corporeal world in itself. (i.e. The sentient and thinking soul is the same with mind).

47. The learned have given the several names of ignorance, intellect, mind, bondage, sin and darkness, to the visible appearance of creation. 48. The mind has no other image than that (of a receptacle and reflector of the ideas) of the visible world, which, I repeat to say, is no new creation (but a reflexion of the mind). 49. The visible world is situated in an atom of the great mind, in the same manner, as the germ of the lotus plant is contained within its seed. 50. The visible world is as innate in the all-knowing mind, as the light is inherent in the sun-beams, and velocity and fluidity are inborn in the winds and liquids. 51. But the visionary ideas of the visibles are as false and fleeting in the minds of their observers, as the form of a jewel in gold, and water in the mirage; and as wrong as the foundation of a castle in the air, and the view of a city in a dream.

KAIVALYA OR MENTAL ABSTRACTION. 52. But as the phenomenals appear as no other than real to their observer, I will O Ráma! cleanse them now from thy mind as they do the soil from a mirror. 53. As the disappearance of an appearance makes the observer no observer of it, know such to be the state of the abstraction of the mind from whatever is real or unreal in the world. (This is called Kevalíbháva or non-chalance of all things). 54. This state being arrived, all the passions of the soul, and the desires of the mind, will be at rest, as torrents of rivers at the calm ensuing upon the stillness of the wind. 55. It is impossible that things having the forms of space, earth and air (i.e. material objects) will present the same features in the clear light (of induction), as they do to our open sight. 56. Thus when the observer comes to know the unreality of the phenomena of the three worlds, as well as of his own entity, it is then that his pure soul attains to the knowledge of kaivalya or solity of divine existence.

57. It is such a mind that reflects the image of God in itself as in a mirror; while all others are as blocks of stone, and incapable of receiving any reflexion at all. 58. After suppression of the sense of ego and tu (or both the subjective and objective knowledge), and the error of the reality of the outer world the beholder becomes abstracted and remains without vision of external things in his sitting posture. 59. Ráma rejoined:—If the perception of entity is not to be put down, nor an entity become a non-entity nor when I cannot view the visibles (which are the causes of our error), as non-entities; 60. Then tell me O Bráhman! how to uproot this disease of our eagerness for the visibles from the mind, which bewilders the understanding, and afflicts us with a train of troubles. 61. Vasishtha replied:—Now hear my advice, Ráma, for the suppression of this phantom of phenomenon, whereby it will surely die away and become utterly extinct. 62. Know Ráma, that nothing that is, can ever be destroyed or become extinct; and though you remove it, yet it will leave its seed or trace in the mind.

63. This seed is the memory of such things, which reopens the ideas of the visibles in the mind, expanding themselves in the fallacious notions of the forms of big worlds and skies, mountains and oceans. 64. These (wrong notions) called doshas or faults and defects of understanding, are obstacles in the way to liberation; but they do not affect the sages who are found to be liberated. 65. Again if the world and all other things are real existences (as the Sánkhyas maintain): yet they cannot confer liberation on any one; because the visibles, whether they are situated within or without us are perishable themselves. 66. Learn therefore this dreadful proposition (solemn truth), which will be fully explained to you in the subsequent parts of this work. (Note:—A dreadful dogma it is to physicists and “ádivádis” or asserters of the encipientes mundi or beginning of the world). 67. That all things appearing in the forms of vacuity, elementary bodies, the world, and ego et tu, are non-entities, and have no meanings in them. 68. Whatever is seen apparent before us, is no other but the supreme Brahma himself, and his undecaying and imperishable essence.

69. The plenitude of creation is an expansion of his plenum, and the quiet of the universe rests in his quietude. It is his beom which is the substance of vacuum, and it is his immensity that is the substratum of the immense cosmos. 70. Nothing visible is real, and there is neither any spectator nor spectacle here. There is nothing as vacuity or solidity in nature, but all this is but a piece of extended Intelligence. 71. Ráma rejoined:—The adages relating the grinding of stones by the son of a barren woman, the horns of a hare, and the dancing of a hill with its extended arms; 72. And the oozing of oil from sand, the reading (of books) by dolls of marble, and the roaring of clouds in a painting, and such others are applicable to your words (of the reality of an unreal essence of God). 73. I see this world to be full of diseases, deaths and troubles, mountains, vacuities and other things, and how is it sir, that you tell me of their non-existence? 74. Tell me Sir, how you call this world to be unsubstantial, unproduced and inexistent, that I may be certain of this truth.

75. Vasishtha replied:—Know Ráma, that I am no inconsistent speaker, and hear me explain to you how the unreality appears as real, as the son of a barren woman has come to rumour. 76. All this was unproduced before, and did not exist in the beginning of creation. It comes to appearance from the mind like that of a city in a dream. (i.e. They are all but creations of the mind and fancy). 77. The mind also was not produced in the beginning of creation and was an unreality itself. Hear me tell you therefore, how we come to a notion of it. 78. This unreal mind spreads by itself the false and changing scenes of the visible world, just as we dream of changeful unrealities as true in a state of dreaming. (Here the dreaming philosopher sees dreams in his dream). 79. It then exerts its volition in the fabrication of the body and spreads far and wide the magic scene of the phenomenal world. 80. The mind by its potentiality of vacillation has many actions of its own, as those of expansion, saltation, and motion, of craving, roving, diving and seizing, and many other voluntary efforts (the causes of physical operations).

ON THE ORIGINAL CAUSE. (MÚLA-KÁRANA). Ráma said:—Tell me, O chief of the sages! what cause is it that leads to our misconception of the mind, how it is produced and what is the source of its illusion. 2. Tell me sir, in brief of the first production (of the mind), and then, O best of the eloquent, you may tell the rest, that is to be said on the subject. 3. Vasishtha replied:—Incident to the universal dissolution, when all things were reduced to nothing, this infinity of visible objects remained in a state of calm and quiet before their creation. 4. There was then the only great God in existence, who is increate and undecaying, who is the creator of all at all times, who is all in all, and supreme soul of all, and resembling the sun that never sets. 5. He whom language fails to describe, and who is known to the liberated alone; who is termed the soul by fiction only, and not by his real nature (which is unknowable). 6. Who is the prime Male of Sánkhya philosophers and the Brahma of Vedánta followers; who is the Intelligence of gnostics and who is wholly pure and apart from all (personalities).

7. Who is known as vacuum by vacuists, who is the enlightener of solar light, who is truth itself, and the power of speech and thought and vision, and all action and passion for ever. 8. Who though ever existent everywhere appears as inexistent to the world, and though situated in all bodies, seems to be far from them. He is the enlightener of our understanding as the solar light (of the world). 9. From whom the gods Vishnu and others are produced as solar rays from the sun; and from whom infinite worlds have come into existence like bubbles of the sea. 10. Unto whom these multitudes of visible creations return as the waters of the earth to the sea, and who like a lamp enlightens the souls and bodies (of all immaterial and material beings). 11. Who is present alike in heaven as in earth and the nether worlds; and who abides equally in all bodies whether of the mineral, vegetable or animal creation. He resides alike in each particle of dust as in the high and huge mountain ranges; and rides as swift on the wings of winds, as he sleeps in the depths of the main.

12. He who appoints the eight internal and external organs (Paryashtakas) of sense and action to their several functions; and who has made the dull and dumb creatures as inert as stones, and as mute as they are sitting in their meditative mood. 13. He who has filled the skies with vacuity and the rocks with solidity; who has dissolved the waters to fluidity, and concentrated all light and heat in the sun. 14. He who has spread these wonderful scenes of the world, as the clouds sprinkle the charming showers of rain; both as endless and incessant, as they are charming and dulcet to sight. 15. He who causes the appearance and disappearance of worlds in the sphere of his infinity like waves in the ocean; and in whom these phenomena rise and set like the running sands in the desert. 16. His spirit the indestructible soul, resides as the germ of decay and destruction in the interior (vitals) of animals. It is as minute as to lie hid in the body, and as magnified as to fill all existence.

17. His nature (Prakriti) spreads herself like a magic creeper (máyá latá) all over the space of vacuity, and produces the fair fruit in the form of the mundane egg (Brahmánda); while the outward organs of bodies, resembling the branches of this plant, keep dancing about the stem (the intelligent soul), shaken by the breeze of life which is everfleeting. 18. It is He, that shines as the gem of intelligence in the heart of the human body; and it is he from whom, the luminous orbs constituting the universe, continually derive their lustre. 19. It is that colossus of intelligence, which like a cloud sheds ambrosial draughts of delight to soothe our souls, and showers forth innumerable beings as rain drops on all sides. It bursts into incessant flashes showing the prospects of repeated creations which are as (momentary as) flashes of lightenings. 20. It is his wondrous light which displays the worlds to our wondering sight; and it is from his entity that both what is real and unreal, have derived their reality and unreality. 21. It is the insensible and ungodly soul, that turns to the attractions of others against its purpose; while the tranquil soul rests in itself (as in the spirit of God).

22. He who transcends all existences, and by whom all existent beings are bound to their destined actions in their proper times and places, and also to their free actions and motions and exertions of all kinds. 23. It is he who from his personality of pure consciousness, became of the form of vacuum (pervading all nature), and then by means of his vacuous mind and empty thoughts filled it with substances, wherein his soul was to reside, and whereon his spirit had to preside. 24. Having thus made the infinite hosts of worlds in the immense sphere of the universe, he is yet neither the agent of any action nor the author of any act in it; but remains ever the same as the sole one alone, in his unchangeable and unimpairing state of self-consciousness, and without any fluctuation, evolution or inhesion of himself, as he is quite unconcerned with the world.

ADMONITION FOR ATTEMPT TO LIBERATION. Mumukshu Pratyopadesa. Vasishtha said:—It is by the knowledge of this transcendent supreme spirit and God of gods, that one may become an adept (in divine service), and not by the rigour of religious austerities and practices. (Proficiency by theoretic knowledge). 2. Here nothing is needed than the culture and practice of divine knowledge, and thereby the truth being known, one views the errors of the world, as a satiate traveller looks at a mirage in a clear light. 3. He (God) is not far from nor too near us, nor is he obtainable by what he is not (as the adoration of images and ceremonial acts). He is the image of light and felicity, and is perceivable in ourselves. 4. Here austerities and charities, religious vows and observances, are of no good whatever. It is the calm quietude of one’s own nature only that is serviceable to him in his services to God. 5. Fondness for the society of the righteous and devotedness to the study of good books, are the best means of divine knowledge; while ritual services and practices, serve only to strengthen the snare of our in-born delusions, which true knowledge alone can sever.

6. No sooner one has known this inward light of his as the very God, than he gets rid of his miseries, and becomes liberated in this his living state. 7. Ráma said:—Having known the Self in himself, one is no more exposed to the evils of life and even to death itself. 8. But say how is this great God of gods to be attained from such great distance (as we are placed from him), and what rigorous austerities and amount of pains are necessary for it. 9. Vasishtha replied:—He is to be known by means of your manly exertions (in knowledge and faith), and by the aid of a clear understanding and right reasoning, and never by the practice of austerities and ablutions, nor by acts attended with bodily pain of any kind. (Hence the mistake of Hatha yoga). 10. For know, O Ráma! all your austerities and charities, your painstaking and mortification are of no efficacy, unless you wholly renounce your passions and enmity, your anger and pride, your selfishness and your envy and jealousy. 11. For whoever is liberal of any money which he has earned by defrauding others, and with a heart full of vile passions, the merit of such liberality accrues to the rightful owner of the property and not to its professed donor.

12. And whoever observes any vow or rite with a mind actuated by passions, he passes for a hypocrite and reaps no benefit of his acts. 13. Therefore try your manly exertions in securing the best remedies of good precepts and good company, for putting down the diseases and disturbances of the world. 14. No other course of action except that of the exertion of one’s manliness, is conducive to the allaying of all the miseries and troubles of this life. 15. Now learn the nature of this manliness for your attainment to wisdom, and annihilation of the maladies of passions and affections and animosity of your nature. 16. True manliness consists in your continuance in an honest calling conformable with the law and good usage of your country; and in a contented mind which shrinks from smelling the enjoyments of life. 17. It consists in the exertion of one’s energies to the utmost of his power, without bearing any murmur or grief in his soul; and in one’s devotedness to the society of the good and perusal of good works and Sástras.

18. He is styled the truly brave who is quite content with what he gets, and spurns at what is unlawful for him to take; who is attached to good company, and ready at the study of unblamable works. 19. And they who are of great minds, and have known their own natures and those of all others by their right reasoning, are honoured by the gods Brahmá, Vishnu, Indra and Siva. 20. He who is called a righteous man by the majority of the good people of the place, is to be resorted to with all diligence as the best and most upright of men. 21. Those religious works are said to compose the best Sástra, which treat chiefly of Spiritual knowledge; and one who constantly meditates on them, is surely liberated (from the bonds of this world). 22. It is by means of right discrimination derived from the keeping of good company and study of holy works, that our understanding is cleared of its ignorance, as dirty water is purified by Kata seeds, and as the minds of men are expurgated by the Yoga philosophy.

RECOGNITION OF THE NIHILITY OF THE PHENOMENAL WORLD. (Drisyásattá Pratijnánam). Ráma said:— Tell me, O Bráhman! where is this God situated and how can I know him, of whom you spoke all this, and whose knowledge you said, leads to our liberation. 2. Vasishtha replied:—This God of whom I spoke, is not at a distance from us. He is situated in these our bodies, and is known to be of the form of mere Intellect (chinmátra) to us. So says Fichte: The Infinite Reason (chit) alone exists in himself—the finite in him. Lewis vol. II. p. 563. 3. He is all in all, though all this world is not the omnipresent Himself. He is one alone and is not termed the all that is visible (to us). So Fichte: God is infinite and embraces the finite, but the finite can not encompass the Infinite. Lewis vol. II. p. 573. 4. It is this Intellect which is in Siva, that wears the cusp of the moon in his crest; the same is in Vishnu that rides on his eagle Garuda, and in Brahmá that is born of the lotus. The sun also is a particle of this Intellect (but they are not the self-same Intellect themselves).

5. Ráma rejoined:—So it is; and even boys say this also, that if the whole world is mere Intelligence (chetana mátrakam); then why call it by another name (as the world), and what is the use of giving admonition of it to anybody (when every one is full of intelligence). 6. Vasishtha replied:—If you have known the mere Intellect (Chinmátram), to be the same with the intelligent world (chetana viswa), you have then known nothing for getting rid of this world. 7. The world is verily intelligent, O Ráma (with the mundane soul); but the animal soul (Jíva) is called pasu or brutish observer of things pasyati, on account of its looking after sensual gratifications only as brutes, and giving rise only to the fears of disease, decay and death (from its love of itself, and care for self-preservation). 8. The animal soul (Jíva), though an incorporeal substance, is an ignorant thing and subject to pain and sorrow. The mind manas also, though it is capable of intelligence—chetaníyam, has become the root of all evils. (i.e. With its power of intellection and nature of intelligence (chetanam), it is yet ever inclined to the wrong side by itself).

9. Intellectual liberation (chetya mukta) from thoughts of the world, is one state (of the soul), and unintelligent gazing (unmukhatá) at it, is another. He who knows the better of these two the states of the soul, has no cause of sorrow (i.e. the rational from the irrational soul). 10. He who has seen the all surpassing Supreme Being, has his heartstrings all cut asunder, and the doubts of his mind all driven away. The sequences of his acts are washed away (and leave no fear of his transmigration). 11. The longing after perceptibles (Chetyas) does not cease, unless the perception of the visibles is effaced from the mind. 12. How then is this perception to be effaced? How is it possible to have a longing after the unintelligible Intelligence, without suppression of our longing for the visibles? It is only to be effected by avoiding the external perceptions of the mind. 13. Ráma said:—Tell me sir, where and how is that vacuous soul called pasu, by the knowledge of which no one can get rid of his transmigration (i.e. the worshippers of the jívátmá or animal soul called jívavádis, are not entitled to their final liberation—mukti).

14. Tell me also, who is that man, who by his company with the good and study of good works, has gone over the ocean of the world, and beholds the Supreme soul in himself. 15. Vasishtha replied:—Whatever animal souls being cast in the wilderness of this life, long after this intelligent soul (chetanátman), they are truly wise, and know him (in themselves). 16. Whoso believes the animal soul as the life of the world (or mundane soul), and thinks (the knowledge of the) Intelligence to be attended with pain only, he can never know Him anywhere (in this world). 17. If the Supreme soul be known to us, O Ráma! the string of our woes is put to an end, like the fatal cholera after termination of its cholic pain or extraction of its poison. 18. Ráma said:—Tell me, O Bráhman! the true form of the Supreme soul, by light of which the mind may escape from all its errors. 19. Vasishtha replied:—The Supreme soul is seen in the same way in ourselves and within our bodies, as we are conscious of our minds to be seated within us, after its flight to distant countries.

20. Our notion of the Supreme spirit is often lost in the depth of our minds, in the same way, as the existence of the outer world (objective knowledge), becomes extinct in our consciousness in yoga meditation. 21. It is He in whose knowledge we lose our sense of the beholder and visibles, and who is an invacuous vacuum or a substantive vacuity himself. (i.e. Who being known, we forget our knowledge both of the subjective and objective, and view his unity as the only to on or substratum of all). So Fichte: In thee, the Incomprehensible, does my own existence, and that of the world become comprehensible to me. Lewis. Phil. vol. II. P. 563. 22. He whose substance appears as the vacuum, and in whom subsists the vacuous plenum of the universe; and who appears as vacuity itself, notwithstanding the plenitude of his creation subsisting in him, is verily the form of the Supreme soul (that you want to know). 23. Who though full of intelligence, appears to stand as an unconscious huge rock before us; and who though quite subtile in his nature, seems as some gross body to our conception: such is the form of the Supreme soul (that you want to know).

24. That which encompasses the inside and outside of every thing, and assumes the name and nature of the very thing to itself, is verily the form of the Supreme (that you want to know). 25. As light is connected with sunshine and vacuity with the firmament and as Omnipresence is present with every thing and every where: such is the form of the Supreme spirit (that you want to know). 26. Ráma asked:—But how are we to understand that He who bears the name and nature of absolute and infinite reality should yet be compressed within any thing visible in the world, which is quite impossible to believe? 27. Vasishtha replied:—The erroneous conception of the creation of the world, resembles the false impression of colours in the clear sky; wherefore it is wrong, O Ráma! to take a thing as real, of which there is an absolute privation in nature. 28. It is the knowledge of Brahma that constitutes his form, or else there is no act of his whereby he may be known to us (the universe being but a development of himself). He is entirely devoid of any visible form, and therefore there is no better course for any one than to know him as truth.

29. After an absolute negation of the visibles comes to be known (i.e. after disappearance of the traces of phenomenals from the mind), there remains a pre-eminent object of conception, which is inborn and manifest of itself. 30. This concept (of the Super-eminent) has oftentimes no reflexion, owing to its having no visible appearance; and at others it is not without its reflexion on the mirror of the mind (which has received its image). 31. No body has ever conceived this transcendent verity in himself, who has not at the same time been convinced of the impossibility of the existence of the visible world. (i.e. Conviction of the nullity of the phenomenal alone, leads to the perception of the Reality). 32. Ráma rejoined:—Tell me, O sage! how the existence of so many extensive worlds composing the visible Universe, can be thought of as unreal, or comprised in the chinmátram (or minutiae of the divine mind), as the mount Meru in the sesamum seed. 33. Vasishtha replied:—If you will but stay a few days in the company of holy men, and study the sacred Sástras with a steady mind with me:

34. Then I will purge away this false view of the visibles from your understanding, like the delusive mirage from one’s sight. This absence of the view will extinguish your sense of being the viewer, and restore you to your intelligence alone. 35. When the viewer is united with the view, and the view with the viewer, there then turns out an unity of the duality, and the duality blends into an inseparable unity. 36. Without union of the two there is no success of either; and this union of both the viewer and the view having disappeared at last, there remains an only one unity (which is indissoluble). 37. I will now cleanse away the dross of all your sense of egoism and tuism, with that of the world and all other things from the mirror of your mind, by bringing you to your consciousness of self, and total negation of every thing besides. 38. From nothing never comes a something, nor from something ever proceeds a nothing; and there is no difficulty whatever in removing what does not exist in nature (i.e. That a nil is nil is self evident, and no argument is required to prove it so).

39. This world which appears so very vast and extensive, was not in being at the beginning. It resided in the pure spirit of Brahma, and was evolved from the mind (Chitta) of Brahmá. 40. The thing called the world was never produced, nor is it in being nor in actual appearance. It is as the form of a bracelet in gold, which it is not difficult to alter and reduce to its gross metallic state. 41. I will explain it fully by other reasons, whereby this truth may appear of itself, and impress irresistibly in your mind. 42. How can that be said to have its being, which was not brought into being before, and how can there be a rivulet in the mirage, or the ring of an eclipse in the moon? 43. As a barren woman has no son nor a mirage any water in it; and as the firmament has no plant growing in it, so there is no such thing which we erroneously call the world. 44. Whatever you see, O Ráma! is the indestructible Brahma himself: this I have many times shown you with good reasons, and not in mere words (as my ipse dixit only).

45. It is unreasonable, O intelligent Ráma! to disregard what a learned man speaks to you with good reasons; because the dull-headed fellow who neglects to listen to the words of reason and wisdom, is deemed as a fool, and is subject to all sorts of difficulties.

NATURE OF GOOD SÁSTRAS. Ráma asked:—How can it be reasonably shewn and established, that there is nothing to be known and seen in this world, although we have evident notions of it supported by sense and right reasoning? 2. Vasishtha answered:—It is from a long time, that this endemic of the fallacious knowledge (of the reality of the world), is prevalent (among mankind); and it is by means of true knowledge only that this wrong application of the word world, can be removed from the mind. 3. I will tell you a story, Ráma! for your success in (the attainment of) this knowledge; if you will but attend to it, you will become both intelligent and emancipate. 4. But if from the impatience of your nature like that of brute creatures, you get up and go away after hearing half of this (narrative), you shall then reap no benefit from it. 5. Whoever seeks some object and strives after it, he of course succeeds in getting the same; but if he become tired of it he fails therein. 6. If you will betake yourself, Ráma! to the company of the good and study of good Sástras, you will surely arrive at your state of perfection in course of a few days or mouths, according to the degree of your diligence.

7. Ráma said:—O you, that are best acquainted with the Sástras, tell me which is the best Sástra for the attainment of spiritual knowledge, and a conversancy with which may release us from the sorrows of this life. 8. Vasishtha replied:—Know, O high minded Ráma! this work (the Vásishtha Sanhitá) to be the best of all others on spiritual knowledge. It is the auspicious Great Rámáyana and the Sástra of sástras. 9. The Rámáyana is the best of histories, and serves to enlighten the understanding. It is known as containing the essence of all histories. 10. But by hearing these doctrines one easily finds his liberation coming of itself to him; wherefore it is reckoned as the most holy record. 11. All the existing scenes of the world will vanish away upon their mature consideration; as the thoughts occurring in a dream, are dispersed upon the knowledge of the dreaming state after waking. 12. Whatever there is in this work, may be found in others also, but what is not found here, cannot be found elsewhere (in other works); and therefore the learned call it the thesaurus (sanhitá) or store-house (of philosophy). 13. Whoever attends to these lectures every day, shall have his excellent understanding undoubtedly stored with transcendent knowledge of divinity day by day.

14. He who feels this Sástra disagreeable to his vitiated taste, may take a fancy to the perusal of some other sástra that is more wordy and eloquent. 15. One feels himself liberated in this life by the hearing of these lectures, just as one finds himself healed of a disease by a potion of some efficacious medicine. 16. The attentive hearer of these sermons, perceives their efficacy in himself, in the same way as one feels the effects of the curses or blessings pronounced upon him which never go for nothing (but have their full effects in time). 17. All worldly miseries are at an end with him, who considers well these spiritual lectures within himself, and which is hard to be effected by charities and austerities, or performance of the acts ordained in the srautá or ceremonial vedas, or by hundreds of practices in obedience to the ordinances appointed by them.

ON THE SUPREME CAUSE OF ALL. (PARAMA KÁRANA). Vasishtha continued:— They are truly delighted and gratified (in their souls), who are ever devoted with all their hearts and minds in holy conversation among themselves. 2. Those that are devoted to the acquisition of knowledge and investigation of spiritual science, enjoy the same bliss of liberation in their living state, as it is said to attend on disembodied souls. 3. Ráma said:—Tell me O Bráhman! the distinct natures of the living and disembodied liberations, that I may try to learn the same, with an understanding enlightened by the light of Sástras (literally, having the eye-sight of Sástras). 4. Vasishtha said:—Who ever remains as he is (i.e. without any perturbation in his worldly course), and continues intact as vacuity amidst society: such a one is called the living liberated (Jívan mukta). 5. Who so is employed in his intellection only and seems to be sleeping in his waking state, though while conducting his worldly affairs: such a one is called the living liberated. 6. Whose countenance is neither flushed nor dejected in pleasure or pain (in joy or grief and such other reverses); and who remains contented with what he gets: such a one is called liberated while he is living.

7. Whose waking is as a state of sound sleep, and who is not awake to the accidents of the waking state, and whose waking state is insensible of the desires incident to it: such a one is called liberated in his life. 8. Who though actuated by the feelings of affection, enmity, fear and the like, is at rest, and as clear and undisturbed as vacuity within himself: such a one is called liberated while he is alive. 9. Who has not an air of pride in him, and is not conceited (with a notion of his greatness) when he does or refrains to do anything: such a one is called self-liberated in his life time. 10. Who at one glance or winking of his eye, has a full view of the whole creation and final destruction of the world, like the Supreme self (to which he is assimilated): such a one is said to be liberated in his life time. 11. Who ever is not feared by nor is afraid of any body, and who is freed from the emotions of joy, anger and fear: such a one is liberated in life.

12. Who is quiet and quietly disposes his business of this world, and who though he stands as an individual in the sight of men, attaches no individuality to himself; and who though a sentient being, is insensible to all impressions: such is the living liberated soul. 13. Who being full of all possessions, and having every thing present before him, remains cold and apathetic to them, as if they were useless to him: such a man is liberated in his life. 14. Now leaving the subject of “living liberation,” I will tell you what they call the “disembodied liberation,” which like a breath of wind enters into the soul, after it has fled from the mortal body. 15. The disembodied free spirit neither rises nor sets (like the sun), nor is it subject to wane (like the moon); it is neither manifest nor hidden; it is not at a distance, nor is it in me, thee or in any other person. 16. It shines forth in the form of the sun, and preserves the world in the manner of Vishnu. It creates the world in the shape of the lotus-born Brahmá, and destroys all as Rudra or Siva.

17. It takes the form of the sky supported on the shoulders of air, which supports all living beings, the gods, sages and demigods in the three worlds. It takes the form of boundary mountains and separates the different regions (of the earth and skies). 18. It becomes the earth and supports these numerous sets of beings, it takes the forms of trees, plants and grass, and yields fruits and grains for supportance (of all living creatures). 19. It takes the forms of fire and water and burns and melts in them by itself. It sheds ambrosia in the form of the moon, and causes death in the shape of poison. 20. It becomes light wherewith it fills the space of the firmament, and spreads darkness in the form of Erebus (tama or Teom). It becomes vacuum (vyom or beom) to leave empty space for all, while in the form of hills it obstructs their free passage on earth. 21. In the form of the fleet mind, it moves the self-moving animals, and in that of dull matter it settles the unmoving immovables. It girds the earth by its form of the ocean, as a bracelet encircles the arm.

22. The bodiless spirit takes upon it the great body of the sun, and illumes all the worlds with their minute particles, while it remains quiet in itself. 23. Whatever is shining in this universe or ever was or is to be so, in any of the three—past, present and future times, know them all O Ráma! as forms of the Divine Spirit (which is free to take any shape it likes). 24. Ráma said:—Tell me, O Bráhman! why this view of liberation, appears so very difficult to me, as to make me believe it altogether incomprehensible to and unattainable by any body. 25. Vasishtha replied:—This (disembodied) liberation is called nirvána or total extinction of self-consciousness, and is styled Brahma also (in whom the human soul is finally absorbed). Attend now to the means of its attainment. 26. All such visible objects known as I, thou, this &c., being unproduced (anutpanna) from the eternal sat or entity of God, it is impossible to have any conception of them in our minds. 27. Ráma said:—Methinks, O best of them that know the knowable! that the bodiless souls of the liberated, when they pass through the bounds of the three worlds, have again to be born according to the course of nature.

28. Vasishtha replied:—Those that retain the reminiscence of the three worlds have to move about in them, but such as have lost the idea of their existence, are absorbed in infinity. 29. For how can one derive the knowledge of the unity of God from his belief in the duality of the separate existence of the world? Therefore the figurative sense of cosmos as God (Viswa) can not give the spiritual and infinite idea of Brahma. 30. He is no other but himself, of the nature of pure intellect, and of the form of the clear and tranquil vacuum (that pervades all things). Brahma is said to be the world, to signify his manifestation of its unreality as a reality unto us. 31. I have well considered about a golden bracelet, and found nothing as a bracelet in it save its gold. (The form is changeable, but the substance is real). 32. I observed the billows, and found nothing in them but water; and where there was no water I saw no billow to rise. (It is the substance and not its shape or shadow that is to be looked into).

33. I see no oscillation any where except in the winds, which are no other than this force in motion, and moving all things in the world. (Thus the spirit of God is the fountain or primum mobile of all forces, which are but forms of the main force). 34. As vacuity abides in air, and water appears in the burning deserts, and as there is light spread over all creation; so is the spirit of Brahma manifest in the three worlds in the forms of the very worlds. 35. Ráma said:—Tell me, O sage! the cause which makes this world with its nature of absolute negation or non-existence, to exhibit such distinct appearances in its phenomena. 36. Tell me also, how the viewer and the view (of these worlds) being both extinct (as they are equally unreal in their nature), there remains their nirvána or absorption in the Deity without their personalities. 37. Again as it is impossible to conceive the existence of the visible objects, say how is it possible to conceive the existence of the invisible Brahma in his own nature (of incomprehensibility). 38. Say by what mode of reasoning this truth may be known and ascertained, and this being accomplished, there remains nothing else to be inquired into.

39. Vasishtha replied:—This false knowledge or prejudice of the reality of the world, has been long prevalent like a chronic disease (among mankind); and requires to be removed by the specific charm (mantra) of reasoning only. 40. It can not however be expelled quickly and in a minute, but requires length of time, like the ascent and descent of an even sided precipice. 41. Therefore hearken to what I say, for dispelling your fallacy of the world, by means of arguments, logical inferences, and habitual meditation (about the nature of God). 42. Attend now Ráma! to a tale that I am to tell you for your attainment of this knowledge, and by the hearing of which you will become intelligent, wise and liberated. 43. I will even now relate to you the subject of the production of the world, in order to show you, that all that is produced serves to bind our souls to the earth, and that you may live quite free from the same. 44. I will tell you at present under this topic of creation, that the erroneous conception of the world is as unsubstantial as Vacuum itself. (i.e. All this is null and void).

45. Because this world which appears to contain these moving and unmoving beings, and abounds in various races of gods, Asura—giants and Kinnara—pigmies. 46. All these together with the Rudras and other demigods, become invisible and lose themselves in nothing at the ultimate dissolution of the world. (This final disappearance tirobháva of all things, proves their present appearance ávirbháva to be mere phantoms of our brain. Gloss). 47. Then there remains a moist and hollow deep, without light and thick spread with mist; all undefinable and undeveloped, save something which is Real and lasts for ever. 48. There was no air nor form of any thing, no sight nor any thing to be seen. There were not these multitudes of created and material beings, that appear to be endless and everlasting to view. 49. There was a nameless self, the fullest of the full in its form; it was no ens nor non ens, no entity nor non-entity, no reality nor unreality neither. 50. It was mere intellect without its intellection, infinite without decay, auspicious and full of bliss. It was without its beginning, middle and end, eternal and imperishable.

51. In him this world is manifest as a pearly goose in painting; He is and yet is not this (creation), and is the soul of both what is real as well as unreal. (Sadasadátman). 52. He is without ears, tongue, nose, eyes and touch, yet he hears, tastes, smells, sees and feels every thing in all places and at all times. 53. He is also that (intellectual) light (chidáloka), whereby the form of that real as well as unreal Being—sadasadátma is discerned by us in his perspective of creation, as one without beginning or end, and presenting a representation that is without any colour or shade. 54. He is that vacuous Soul who views the worlds as clearly, as the yogi beholds Him in the form of ineffable light, with his half closed eyes, and fixing his sight to the midst of his eyebrows (in his khecharí mudrá or aerial mode of meditation). 55. He is the cause of all, and whose cause is as nil as the horns of a hare; and whose works are all these worlds, like so many waves of the sea.

56. His light is ever shining every where, and he has his seat in the human heart; and it is from the candle light of his intellect, that all the worlds derive their light. 57. It is He without whose light the sun would dwindle into darkness; and whose existence alone gives the world its appearance of a mirage. 58. It is his pulsation that vibrates throughout the universe, and it is his inertia that stops the course of the whole; it is on that pivot that the world has its revolution, just as the turning round of a fire brand describes a circle. 59. His nature is pure and unchangeable; and the works of creation and destruction, are mere acts of his volition (Vilása), in the persons of Brahma and Hara. 60. It is his inertia and force that gives rest and motion to all things, like the ubiquious course of the winds. But this is the common belief that he moves, while in reality his nature is free from all mutability (like the immovable rock). 61. He is always awake in his ever sleeping state, and therefore can neither be said to be waking nor sleeping any where or at any time, but is both awake and asleep every where and at all times.

62. His quiescence is attended with bliss and tranquillity, and his agitation puts the world in motion and in its course of action; which is said to remain unaltered in both states which unite in him. 63. He is inherent in all things as fragrance is innate in the flower, and is indestructible as its odour at the destruction of the flower. He pervades all things, and is yet as intangible as the whiteness of linen. 64. Who though speechless, is the author of all speech and sound, and who though he appears to be as incogitant as a stone, is full of cogitation (being the intellect itself). Who though fully satisfied with his bliss, enjoys all things, although he requires nothing for himself. 65. Who though bodiless actuates all the members of the body; and is attributed with a thousand arms and eyes (in the Veda); and who having no support for himself, is yet the support of all, and pervades the whole without being seated any where. 66. Who having no organs nor organic power, is the organ of organs, and performs the functions of innumerable organs; and who without a sensorial mind, exhibits endless designs of his Divine mind in the infinity of creation.

67. It is for want of our (knowledge) of him, that we are in constant dread of this delusive world as in that of a dragon or hydra; but it is at his sight (or by our knowledge of him), that all our fears and desires fly away afar from us. 68. It is in the presence of the clear light of that God of Truth, that all the wishes of our minds have a better play, just as actors dance the best as long as they have the lights. 69. It is by him that a hundred series of visible objects (as pots and plates—ghata-patádí), rise every moment to our view, like the ceaseless series of waves, billows and surges rising on the surface of the waters. 70. It is he that exhibits himself otherwise than what he is, in hundreds of different shapes to our mistaken minds, as the substance of gold is made to appear to our view in the various forms of bracelets, armlets, and a hundred other sorts of trinkets. 71. He who manifests himself as the soul, abiding in me, thee and in this or that person, and is neither myself, thyself, himself nor itself, is the Supreme soul or Self, that is the same with and apart from all.

72. It is he and the self-same being, whether you view him in one or more objects, as it is the same water that heaves itself in this one or the other wave. Thus all visible phenomena have their rise from him. 73. He from whom time has its counting and the visibles have their view; by whom the mind exercises its thinking powers, and by whose light the world is enlightened; is the Supreme. 74. Whatever forms, figures and their actions, whatsoever flavours and odours, and what sounds, touch, feelings and perceptions soever, you are sensible of, know them all and their cause also to be the Supreme. 75. You will be able to know your soul, O good Ráma! if you will take it in the light of the sight or faculty of vision, that lies between the looker and the object looked upon.

76. Know it as increate and indestructible, and without beginning and end. It is the eternal and everlasting Brahma and bliss itself. It is immaculate and infallible, highly adorable and unblamable in its nature. It is beyond all description and a mere void in its form. It is the cause of causes and a notion of something that is unknowable. It is the understanding, and the inward faculty of the intellect or the mind. (i.e. It is a spiritual substance and must be known in the spirit).

DESCRIPTION OF THE CHAOTIC STATE. Ráma said:—That which remains incident to the Universal dissolution (mahá-pralaya), is commonly designated by the term “formless void.” 2. How then said you, there was no void, and how could there be no light nor darkness neither? 3. How could it be without the intellect and the living principle, and how could the entities of the mind and understanding be wanting in it? 4. How could there be nothing and not all things? Such like paradoxical expressions of yours, have created much confusion in me. 5. Vasishtha said:—You have raised a difficult extra-question, Ráma! but I shall have no difficulty to solve it, as the sun is at no pains to dispel the nocturnal gloom. 6. On the occasion or the termination of a great kalpa age, when there remains That Entity (the Tat sat) of God, it cannot be said to be a void, as I will now explain to you. Attend Ráma and hear. 7. Like images carved in bas-relief upon a pillar, was this world situated in relievo of That Entity, and cannot be said to have been a void.

8. Again when there was the representation of the plenitude under the appellation of the world at any place (in the essence of God), and be it real or unreal, it could not have been a void and vacuity. 9. As a pillar with carved or painted figures, cannot be said to be devoid of them; so Brahma exhibiting the worlds contained in him, can not become a void. (i.e. As a pillar is not devoid of figures which has carved images on it; so Brahma is not a void, having the worlds contained in him. This is a negative enthymem). 10. But the world contained in Brahma, becomes both something and nothing; as billows in calm waters may either exist or not exist. (So the appearance and disappearance of the worlds in Brahma, like those of the little billows in a quiet lake, prove their existence and non-existence at the same time, as it is predicated of the Chaos or the Mahápralaya. Gloss). 11. Again it happens that certain figures are marked on some insensible trees in some places by the hand of time, which people mistake for images; so it comes to pass that certain figures of evanescent matter, occur in the eternal mind, which men mistake for the real world.

12. This comparison of the figured pillar and tree and the world, is a partial and not complete simile; the similitude here referring only to the situation of the transient world in the substance of the permanent Brahma (like the appearance of false figures in the firmly fixed pillar and on the standing tree). 13. But this appearance of the world is not caused by another (as in the case of the pillar, figures and pictures carved and painted by the hands of the statuary and painter). It rises, lasts and sets spontaneously and of itself in the self-same essence of Brahma (as the figures in the tree or the waves of the Ocean). It is the property of the divine soul and mind to raise and set such imageries in them by turns, like the creations of our imagination. 14. The meaning of the word void (súnya) instead of no void (asúnya) or existence, is a fiction as false as inanity is a nullity in nature. Something must come out of something, and never from a void nothing; and how can nothing be reduced to nothing in the end—mahápralaya (súnyatá súnyate katham)? (Ex nihilo nihil fit, et in nihilum nihil reverti posse).

15. In answer to your second question it has been said “there was darkness neither.” Because the divine light of Brahma (which existed before creation), was not like the light of a material luminary (which is followed by darkness). The everlasting light was not to be obscured by darkness, like the sunshine, or moon-light or the blazing of fire or the twinkling of stars or our eyes. 16. It is the absence of the light of the great celestial luminaries, that is called darkness, and there being no material property in the immaterial essence of God, there could be no such light or darkness with him before creation. 17. The light of the vacuous Brahma is an internal perception of the soul, and is only felt and perceived within one’s self, and never externally by any body; nor is this spiritual light ever clouded by any mist or darkness of temporal objects. 18. The indestructible Brahma is beyond and free from external and visible light and darkness; and is above the region of vacuum which is contained, as it were, within his bosom, and contains the universe as sheathed within its hollow womb.

19. As there is no difference between the outside and inside of a fruit (both of which is the same thing); so there is no shade of difference betwixt Brahma and the universe (the one pervading and the other pervaded by his spirit). 20. As the billow is contained in and composed of the water and the pot of the earth, so the world being contained in Brahma, it can not be said as null and void, but full of the spirit of God. 21. The comparison of earth and water does not agree corporeally with the spiritual essence of God, whose vacuous spirit contains and comprises the whole (Visva) within itself, as those elements do their component parts and productions. 22. Now as the sphere of the intellect is clearer and brighter far than the spheres of air and empty space; so the sense and idea of the word world as situated in the divine mind, is clearer in a far greater degree than this visible world appears to us.

23. (In answer to the third question with regard to the want of intellect), it is said thus:—As the pungency of pepper is perceived by one who tastes it, and not by him who has never tasted it; so the minutiae of the Intellect are known in the intellectual sphere by a cultivated intelligence, and by none who is without it. 24. Thus the Intellect appears as no intellect to one who is devoid of intelligence in himself (i.e. one having the Intellect, does not perceive it without a cultivated understanding). So this world is seen in the spirit of God or otherwise, according as one has cultivated or neglected his spiritual knowledge. 25. The world as it is, is seen either in its outward figure or in a spiritual light, as other than or the same with Brahma (by the materialist and spiritualist); but the Yogi views it in its fourth (turíya) state of susupta or utter extinction in his unconscious soul. 26. Therefore the Yogi, though leading a secular life, remains somnolent (Susupta) in his soul, and tranquil (Sánta) in his mind. He lives like Brahma unknown to and unnoticed by others, and though knowing all and full of thoughts in himself, he is as a treasury of Knowledge, unknown to the rest of mankind.

27. (In answer to the question how corporeal beings could proceed from the incorporeal Brahma). Vasishtha says:—As waves of various shapes rise and fall in the still and shapeless breast of the sea, so innumerable worlds of various forms, float about in the unaltered and formless vacuity of Brahma’s bosom. 28. From the fullness of the Divine soul (Brahmátmá), proceeds the fullness of the living soul (Jívátmá), which is formless also (nirákriti). This aspect of Brahma is said to be owing to the purpose of manifesting himself (as living in all living beings). 29. So the totality of worlds proceeding from the plenum of Brahma, there remains the same sum total also as the plenitude of Brahma himself. 30. Considering the world as synonymous with Brahma in our minds, we find their identity (in the same manner), as one finds by taste the pepper and its pungency to be the same thing.

31. Such being the state of the unreality of the mind and its cognizables, their reflexions upon each other (i.e. of the mind upon the object and those of the object on the mind), are equally untrue as the shadow of a shadow. (Here is an utter negation of perception and perceptibles. There being no material subtratum, the shadowy scene of the world is a mere mental synthesis. Berkeley). 32. Know Brahma to be smaller than the smallest atom, and minutest of minutest particles. He is purer than air, and more tranquil than the subtile ether which is embosomed in him. 33. Unbounded by space and time, his form is the most extensive of all. He is without beginning and end, and an ineffable light without brightness in it. (He is the light of lights). 34. He is of the form of intellect—chit and life eternal, without the conditions and accidents of vitality—jívatá. The Divine Mind has its will eternal, and is devoid of the desires of finite minds—chittata. 35. Without the rise of the intellect (i.e. its development), there is neither vitality nor understanding, no intellection nor any organic action or sensation, and no mental desire or feeling whatever (all of which are but products of the intellect or Ego).

36. Hence the Being that is full of these powers (and without which no power has its display), and who is without decline or decay, is seen by us to be seated in his state of tranquil vacuity, and is rarer than the rarefied vacuum of the etherial regions. 37. Ráma said:—Tell me again and more precisely of the form of this transcendental Being, who is of the nature of infinite intelligence, and which may give more light to my understanding. 38. Vasistha said:—I have told you repeatedly, that there is one supreme Brahma, the cause of causes, who remains alone by himself, when the universe is finally dissolved or absorbed in him. Hear me describe Him fully to you. 39. That which the Yogi sees within himself after forgetting his personality, and repressing the faculties and functions of his mind, in his Samádhi—meditation, is verily the form of the unspeakable Being. 40. As the Yogi who is absorbed in his meditation in absence of the visible world, and in privation of the viewer and visibles, and sees the light shining in himself, even such is the form of that Being.

41. Who having forgotten the nature of the living soul—jíva, and his proclivity towards the intelligibles, remains in the pure light and tranquil state of his intellect (as in Yoga), such is the form of the Supreme Spirit. 42. He who has no feeling of the breathing of the winds, or of the touch or pressure of any thing upon his body; but lives as a mass of intelligence in this life; is verily the form of the Supreme. 43. Again that state of the mind, which a man of sense enjoys in his long and sound sleep, that is undisturbed by dreams and gnats, is verily the form of the Supreme. 44. That which abides in the hearts of vacuum, air and stone, and is the intellect of all inanimate beings, is the form of the Supreme. 45. Again whatever irrational and insensible beings live by nature, as without the soul and mind (as vegetables and minerals), the tranquil state of their existence is the nature of the Supreme Soul.

46. That which is seated in the midst of the intellectual light of the soul, and what is situated in the midst of the etherial light of the sun, and that which is in the midst of our visual light, is verily the form of the Supreme. (This passage admits of an occult interpretation in the Yoga system). 47. The soul which is the witness of our knowledge, of solar and visual lights and darkness, is without beginning and end, and is the form of the Supreme. 48. He who manifests this world to us, and keeps himself hidden from view, be he the same with or distinct from the world, is the form of the Supreme. 49. Who though full of activity, is sedate as a rock, and who though not a vacuum (being the plenum of all), appears yet as an empty vacuity, such is the form of the Supreme. 50. He who is the source and terminus of our triple consciousness of the knower, known and knowledge (i.e. from whom they rise and in whom they set by turns); is most difficult of attainment.

51. He who shines forth with the lustre of the triple conditions of the knowable, knower and their knowledge, and shows them to us as a large insensible mirror, is verily the form of the Supreme, who is here represented not as the cause—nimitta, but as the source—vivarta of the triple category. 52. The mind that is liberated from bodily activities (as in the waking Jagrat state) from its dreaming (as in the swapna or sleeping state), and is concentrated in the intellect (as in the state of susupti or sound sleep), and abides alike in all moving as well as unmoving bodies (as in the turíya or fourth state of the soul), is said to remain in the end of our being. 53. The intelligent mind which is as fixed as an immovable body, and freed from the exercise of its faculties, is comparable with the Divine Mind.

SPIRITUAL VIEW OF CREATION. Ráma said:—Tell me, O Bráhman, wherein this world abides at its last dissolution, when it does not retain its present form, nor this resplendent show (as we see in it now). 2. Vasishtha answered:—Tell me, Ráma, what is the form of the barren woman’s son, and wherefrom he comes and where he goes, tell me also from where comes the sky-arbour (aerial castle), and where it remains. 3. Ráma replied:—There never was, nor is, nor ever will be the son of a barren woman or an arbour in the sky; why then ask about the form and figure of what is nothing? 4. Vasishtha said:—As there never was a barren woman’s son or a forest in the air, so there existed no such scene as that of the world before. 5. That which has no existence at all, could have neither its production before, nor can it have its dissolution afterwards. What shall I then tell you regarding its genesis or exit. 6. Ráma rejoined:—The son of a barren woman and a forest in the sky are mere fictions, but the visible world is not so, which has both its beginning and end.

7. Vasishtha replied:—It is hard to have a comparison of the compared object, agreeing in all respects with what it is compared. The comparison of the world, is as a simile of those objects, which admit of no comparison (but with themselves). 8. The appearance of the world, is compared with that of a bracelet, because the one is as false as the other, and neither of them is real. 9. And as there is nothing in the sky except a negative emptiness, so the existence of the world in Brahma, is but a negative idea. 10. As the collyrium is no other than blackness, and as there is no difference between frost and its coldness, so the world is not otherwise than the great Brahma himself. 11. As coldness can not be negatived of the moon and frost, so creation can not be negated of God. (Literally, creation is no negative property of Brahma, but essential to his nature). 12. As there is no water in a sea of the mirage, nor light in the new moon, so this world, as it is, does not abide in the pure spirit of God (in its gross state).

13. That which did not exist at first owing to its want of a cause, has neither its existence at present, nor can it be destroyed (when it is a nil itself). 14. How is it possible for a dull material object to have any other cause but a material one; just as it is not the light (but some solid substance), that is the cause of a shadow. 15. But as none of these works, has come into existence without some cause, that cause whatever it is, is situated in these productions of it: (i.e. the author is displayed in his works). 16. Whatever appears as ignorance or delusion (as this world), has some appearance of intelligence or truth (of the Divinity) in it, as the delusion of the world seen in a dream, is the effect of the intellect within us. (Consciousness is awake in our dreams also). 17. As the illusion of the world in a dream, is not without our inward consciousness of it, in like manner Brahma was not unconscious of the expansion of the world, at the beginning of creation.

18. All this that we behold about us, is situated in the divine soul (in the same manner as the visions in our dreams, are but archetypes of our souls); there is no other world that rises and sets (but what is imprinted in our minds). 19. As fluidity is another name for water, and fluctuation the same with wind; and as sunshine is no other than light, so the world is naught but Brahma (displayed in nature). 20. As the figure of a city, resides in the inward intellect of one, who is conscious of his dreaming, in the same manner this world, is displayed in the Supreme soul. 21. Ráma said:—If it is so, then tell me, O Bráhman! whence is this our belief of its substantiality, and how this unreal and visionary ideal, presents its baneful visible aspect unto us. 22. For the view being in existence, there must be its viewer also, and when there is the viewer, there is the view likewise. As long as either of these is in existence, there is our bondage, and it is on the disappearance of both, that our liberation chiefly depends: (which can hardly take place).

23. It is entirely impossible to be so, as long as our notion of the view, is not lost in our minds, for unless the view is vanished both from the vision of the eyes and mind, no one can even form an idea of liberation in his mind. 24. Again the representation of the view at first, and its obliteration afterwards, is not enough for our liberation, because the remembrance of the view, is bondage of the soul. 25. Moreover when the picture of the view, is settled in the soul, and reflected in the mirror of the mind, there is no necessity of its recollection (for what is deeply rooted in the soul, comes out of itself). 26. The intellect which was without the notion of the visibles at first, would be entitled to liberation, were it not owing to the nature of the viewer (to imbibe the ideas of visibles). 27. Now sir, please to remove by your reasoning, my hopelessness of liberation, which I ween, is unattainable by any. 28. Vasishtha said:—Hear me, Ráma! explain to you in length, how the unreal world with all its contents, appears as real to us.

29. For unless it is explained to you by my reasoning, and the narratives and instances (of the practice of others), this doubt will not subside in your breast, as dirt sets down in the lake. 30. Then Ráma, you will be able to conduct yourself on earth, as one under assurance of the erroneous conception of the creation and existence of the world. 31. You will then remain as a rock against the impressions of affluence and want, and of gain and loss, and your relation with whatever, is fleeting or lasting and the like. 32. Mind, that there is that only one spirit, which is self-existent, and all besides is mere fiction. I will now tell you, how the triple world was produced and formed. 33. It was from Him, that all these beings have come to existence; while He of himself, is all and every thing in it. He likewise appears to us and disappears also, both as forms and their appearances, and as the mind and its faculties, and as figures and their shapes, and as modes and motions of all things.

THE IDEALISTIC THEO-COSMOGONY OF VEDÁNTA. Vasishtha said:— From the state of perfect quiescence and tranquillity of the supremely Holy spirit, the universe rose to being in the manner, which you must hear with your best understanding and attention. 2. As sound sleep displays itself in visionary dreams, so does Brahma manifest himself in the works of creation, of which he is the soul and receptacle: (i.e. who contains and forms and enlivens the whole). 3. The world, which of its nature is continually progressive in its course, is identic with the essence of that Being, whose form is selfsame with the ineffable glory of his eternally gemming Intellect (chin-mani). 4. This chit or Intellect, then (i.e. after its inert quiescence), gets of itself an intellection (chetyá) in itself, before assuming to itself consciousness or the knowledge of egoism. (This is the first stage of the percipient soul). 5. Then this thinking Intellect (chetya-chit), gets the notions (bodhas) of some faint images (úhita-rúpas), which are purer and lighter than air, and which have received their names and forms afterwards. (The innate ideas are born in it before the embryonic mind or soul).

6. Afterwards this transcendent essence (Intellect), becomes an intelligent principle (sacheta), and eager for intelligence (chetana). It is now worthy of its name as Intellect or chit, on account of its attaining to what is called intelligence. 7. Lastly it takes the form of gross consciousness (ghana-samvedana), and receives the name of the living soul—jíva. It now loses its divine nature by reflecting on itself: (i.e. its own personality). 8. This living principle, is then involved in thoughts relating to the world only; but depends by its nature on the divine essence: (as the fallacy of the snake, depends on the substance of the rope). 9. Afterwards there rises a void space into being, called Kham—vacuum (Arabic Kháviyetun), which is the seed or source of the property of sound, and which became expressive of meaning afterwards. (It is called ákása or sky-light from kása to shine, as light was the first work of God). 10. Next in order are produced the elements of egoism and duration in the living soul (i.e. the simultaneousness of the ideas of self-entity and duration in the living principle). And these two terms, are the roots of the subsistence of future worlds. (i.e. The individuality and durability of things).

11. This ideal knowledge, of the unreal forms of the net-work of world, in divine Spirit, was made to appear as a reality by the Omnipotent power. (i.e. The ideal world appeared afterwards as real). 12. Thus the ideal self-consciousness became the seed (or root) of the tree of desires, which were vacillated by egoism in the form of air. 13. The intellect in the form of the airy ego, thinks on the element of sounds (sabda tanmátram); it becomes by degrees denser than the rarefied air, and produces the element of mind. 14. Sound is the seed (or root) of words, which were afterwards diversified in the forms of names or nouns and significant terms; and the assemblage of words, as shoots of trees, is varied in padas or inflected words, vákyas or sentences, and the collections of Vedas and Sástras. 15. It is from this Supreme spirit, that all these worlds derived their beauty afterwards; and the multitude of words (which sprang from the sounds), and were full of meaning, became widely spread at last.

16. The Intellect having such a family as its offspring, is expressed by the word jíva (zoa) or the living soul, which became afterwards the arbor (or source) of all forms of beings, known under a variety of expressions and their significations. (i.e. The living god Brahmá became the cause of the formal world, from the tanmátra elements produced by Brahma). 17. The fourteen kinds of living beings, which fill the cells in the bowels of all worlds, sprang afterwards from this living soul. (These include all vegetable and animal life and all such as increase in bulk and growth). 18. It was then, that the Intellect by a motion and inflation of itself, and at an instantaneous thought, became the element tanmátra of touch and feeling (the air), which was yet without its name and action. (The Spirit breathed breathless. Sruti). This breath caused air, which expanded itself and filled all bodies, which are objects of touch and feeling. 19. The air, which is the seed (root) of the tree of tangibles, then developed itself into branches, composed of the (49) various kinds of winds, that are the causes of the breathings and motions of all beings.

20. Then the Intellect produced at pleasure and from its idea of light, the elemental essence of lustre, which received afterwards its different names (from the light of the sun and moon and the stars, as also from those of fire and lightning). 21. Then the sun, fire, lightning and others, which are the seeds (or roots) of the tree of light, caused the various colours of bodies that filled the world. (That light is the cause of colour, was known to the ancient Rishi). 22. It reflected on the want of fluidity, and produced the liquid body of waters, whose taste constitutes the element (tanmátra) of flavour. 23. The desire of the soul for different flavours (rasas), is the seed of the tree of taste, and it is by the relish of a variety of tastes, that the world is to go on in its course. 24. Then the self-willed Brahmá, wishing to produce the visible earth, caused the property of smell to appertain to it from his own element of it. 25. He made his elementary solidity, the seed or source of the tree of forms (morphology); as he made his own element of rotundity the substratum of the spherical world.

26. Those elements being all evolved from the Intellect, are again involved of themselves in it, as the bubbles of water rise and subside in itself. 27. In this manner, all those beings remain in their combined states, until their final dissolution into their simple and separate forms. 28. All those things, which are but forms and formations of pure Intellect, remain within the sphere of Divine Intelligence, as the germs of the big banian tree, reside in the forms of pollen and the seed. 29. These sprouted forth in time, and burst out into a hundred branches: and after having been concealed in an atom, became as big as they were to last for ever. 30. Such is the growth and multiplication of things by pervasion of the Intellect, until they are put to a stop by its contraction and when weakened in their bodies by its desertion, they droop down in the end. 31. Thus is this class of elementary tanmátras, produced in the Intellect out of its own volition, and are manifested in the form of formless minutiæ to sight. (trasaranus).